LaCroix - Storyboard 5

The place: Pompeii. The year: 79 AD. Having recently returned from a victorious battle, the most powerful general in the Emperor's army celebrates with a party where he shows off a bust made in his likeness and laughingly admits to putting out the eyes of the artist who created it. The telling of the rest of his devious exploits is interrupted when the General's mistress, Seline enters the room and greets her mate for the first time since his return. Their relationship is obviously strained but they manage to be cordial in front of the guests.

When Lucius inquires about their daughter, Seline tells him that young Divia had been very ill but an ancient healer sent by the gods came and restored her health. Not wanting to spend any more time with him, Seline hurries off to entertain her guests. As Lucius ponders their shaky relationship, he's approached by the Proconsul who has a few words for him concerning his daughter. He tells him that something isn't right about Divia. "She's pale and silent," he utters to the General. "She never plays in the sunlight; there's a menace to her."

The Proconsul's observations are cut short when the person he speaks of makes an appearance. Lucius calls to his daughter, extending his arms for her to embrace him. Divia ignores the gesture and with a devilish smile, silently retreats back into the darkness from whence she came, leaving her father somewhat forlorned by the rejection.

While sleeping off the effects of too much partying, Lucius is startled awake by Divia, who questions him on the rumor that he ordered his men to rape the women of his vanquished enemy, the Gauls. He explains that it was to crush his enemy and reward his men. "I must get my vicious streak from you," Divia muses. She then casually mentions that she's going to live forever and asks her father if he would like to do the same. At that moment, an earth tremor begins to rock the palace and the Proconsul rushes in with a warning about Mt. Vesuvius erupting. He tries in vain to get the General to vacate the palace immediately.

Lucius refuses to believe that the gods can destroy him, but as the building shakes violently and everything begins to collapse around him, he drops to his knees in defeat. His daughter approaches and tells him that death can be cheated. With glowing eyes and fangs extended, Divia asks her father to choose. "Live or die. What is your decision?" "To live, Divia," he responds annoyed, not knowing what she has in mind. "To live!" With that, his daughter sinks her fangs painfully into his neck, thus beginning his life as a vampire.

Twenty years after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii, Divia takes her father to an Egyptian tomb to visit the vampire that created her. She explains that he was the healer that came to her while she was ill, but that he had since been staked, scorched by the sun and his remains sealed in the sarcophagus. When she admits to being the one who killed the ancient vampire, Lucius becomes enraged. He scolds her for carelessly destroying someone who should have garnered her highest respect. Divia tells him that she did it because Carral wanted to control and harness her evil for his own purposes. She killed him to be free to live as she pleases.

Divia tells Lucius that they are free to do whatever they want, including killing as much as they want and loving whomever they choose. It just so happens that Divia chooses her own father to be her lover. When she request that Lucius make love to her, he is so sickened by the incestuous suggestion that he decides that his daughter is just too evil to live. Luckily, there's a razor sharp scythe in handy reach, which Lucius picks up and swings at his unsuspecting child, relieving her of all those naughty thoughts, along with her head. He then seals her remains in a sarcophagus, secure in the knowledge that his evil deed will remain a secret for all of eternity.